Earlier in the year, the Lord spoke a word to my heart saying, “This is a time of reset and revealing.”  We were dealing with a pandemic that had recently begun to affect a few states in America. It started in China but was now affecting Europe, especially Italy. Our government seemed to be stymied by it; confusion and panic were staggering among so many. I never questioned why the Lord would speak such a word; mine was to accept it and try to understand its significance later. In Romans 8:18-19, Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” In the initial stages of this coronavirus pandemic, many were dying. The disease was highly contagious, and our medical professionals were overwhelmed! How could God use this plague to reset His people, give them an opportunity to do, as it were, their “first works” over? It was a mystery, nevertheless, I hid His words in my heart.

Our world and the Church were about to undergo hardship, pain, and suffering by an unseen enemy as we had not experienced in a hundred years! Coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, was killing both the righteous and the unrighteous. The virus and the handling of it became a political issue, rather than solely a medical one. Many in the Church began to align themselves with their political interests rather than with Kingdom interests, thus we began to see the revealing. I was shocked to see what I had read from the scriptures being played out in real time right before my eyes: believers preferring to align themselves with the ungodly rather than with the people of God. Although seeing the disorder and chaos that was exacerbated by civil unrest and rampant untruths filling the airwaves and inundating us on social media platforms, “Believers in Christ” have fallen in with those who do not know Jesus as though it was a normal thing. This is what the Lord meant when He said, “this is a time of ‘reset and revealing.’” These difficult times have begun to reveal where we have placed our trust and to whom we have pledged loyalty. We are seeing before our very eyes brothers and sisters betraying one another daily on social media. Has the die been cast, and we have reached a point of no return? Will we see greater betrayals of each other in the future, greater than what we are seeing now? Yes, I believe we will see even greater betrayals, brother fighting against brother and sister against sister not only on social media, but more egregiously. Jesus predicted a day would come when a man’s enemies would be those of his own family. Pastors and Christian leaders have given themselves to explaining and taking sides in our world’s “great conflict” rather than preaching the Gospel. The Gospel of the Kingdom is our mission. We have drifted far from our mission of loyalty and focus on Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are in this violent hour of crisis — adrift, rudderless! We have failed to obey Him.

Let us take this time to contemplate these words of Jesus in scripture.

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57–62).

Pastor Don